Lassen Crew: Ready to Respond

UNITED STATES

07.19.2019

Story by Petty Officer 2nd Class Tamara Vaughn 

Navy Public Affairs Support Element East - (Active)

ATLANTIC OCEAN – When general quarters is announced on the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen (DDG 82), the damage control training team answers the call by leading the crew through rigorous training scenarios.

The general quarters alarm is a signal to the crew to man their battle stations as quickly as possible. Sailors rush to their assigned stations, ready to fight to save their ship.
Lassen is currently underway to conduct composite training unit exercise with the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group. As part of COMPTUEX, general quarters drills are run to give the crew a chance to put their training to the test in a combat simulation.

"Training is key,” said Chief Damage Controlman David Beville, Lassen’s DCTT leading chief petty officer. “Sometimes it can be a little repetitive, but it’s definitely necessary. COMPTUEX gives us a chance to work out the kinks before deploying.”

During the drills, Lassen Sailors report to their assigned stations and prepare for the evolution. Muster is taken, and then duties are quickly assigned according to the situation.

“Time is of the essence to save the ship in an emergency,” said Beville. "It's important that our Sailors are well trained, so when we come up against a real-life emergency at sea, they can react quickly and keep this great battle ship afloat and operational.”

Sailors train how to respond to these situations by practicing firefighting, desmoking and deflooding to make the drill as realistic as possible.

"The more times you do it, it becomes second nature," said Personnel Specialist 1st Class David Beban, a member of Lassen’s DCTT. "We train exactly the way we fight, and that enables us to have our reflexes and intuition take over to combat any scenario without having to think about it."

Creating this kind of muscle memory is just part of the purpose of general quarters drills. Being able to effectively communicate during a stressful situation takes time to develop.

“Sailors need to know what to do and where to go,” said Beville about responding to shipboard emergencies. “Communication is always going to be the biggest hurdle because the more complicated the message is, the harder it is to get the exact same message across the whole spectrum."

Beville said he continues to notice the Sailors’ improvements with each drill. Likewise, the Sailors themselves are beginning to notice their skills getting better.

"We seem more unified every time," said Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Kevin Iverson, a Lassen Sailor. "We work better. There is more harmony. We're beginning to read ourselves a little bit better every time we go through the scenarios. Our audible cues and our hand cues seem to get better every single time."

COMPTUEX is an intensive, month-long exercise designed to fully integrate units of HSTCSG, while testing the strike group's ability as a whole to carry out sustained combat operations from the sea. Ships, squadrons and staffs will be tested across every core warfare area within their mission sets through a variety of simulated and live events, including air warfare, strait transits, and responses to surface and subsurface contacts and electronic attacks.

HSTCSG is scheduled to deploy later this year. Strike group elements participating in COMPTUEX include USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) and embarked Carrier Air Wing One; staffs from Carrier Strike Group 8 and Destroyer Squadron 28, Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG 60); and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Ramage (DDG 61), USS Lassen (DDG 82), USS Forrest Sherman (DDG 98), and USS Farragut (DDG 99).

• Date Taken: 07.19.2019
• Date Posted: 07.28.2019 10:54
• Story ID: 332196
• Location: US